I highly recommend that everyone read this editorial by prominent North Korean defector Kang Chol-hwan who wrote the bestselling book Aquariums of Pyongyang.  Here is a snippet:

Asked what the food situation is like in North Korea, a North Korean overseas official said what was more serious in the North is the manhunt. The State Security Department is hunting innocent people in a bid to ferret out spies implicated in South Korea’s recently reinforced overseas intelligence activities.

With economic aid from the South suspended since the Roh Moo-hyun administration ended, the North Korean elite have begun watching their leadership. The North Korean regime, though it managed without much difficulty thanks to the South’s handout aid in the past decade, was unprepared for the post-Roh era. Kim Jong-il and the top leadership, despite an extreme economic crisis, shot dead South Korean tourist in the Mt. Kumgang resort, applied pressure over the joint Kaesong Industrial Estate, and fired a missile.

Ordinary North Koreans are pessimistic about these self-destructive acts. The elite fear that if Kim Jong-il goes under, so will they. A recent sharp increase in the defection of senior North Korean figures is not unrelated to that sense of crisis.

The elite have witnessed two types of transformation. One was the German unification and the other China’s reform and opening. German unification completely deprived all East German Communist party and military leaders of their privileges and made them jobless. Kim Jong-il had the plight of former East German leaders photographed and shown to North Korean cadres. And many members of the elite, though they detested Kim Jong-il, thought they had no alternative but to follow him for fear of losing their privileges if the regime collapsed.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Make sure to click the link and read the rest.